The abundance (and variety) of musical talent that Albuquerque has to offer never ceases to amaze me. When I first moved here from the Philadelphia area, I couldn't believe how many local bands there were. What's more, I couldn't believe how many good local bands there were. Sometimes Albuquerque feels like a mini-Seattle or Little Austin; and it's just a matter of time before our favorite local bands are swept up to some other place for bigger and more profitable things. Don't we miss the days when bands like The Shins, Stoic Frame or Eric McFadden (to name a few) played here every weekend? Sure we do. But let's dry our eyes and look to the future. This Saturday, three of Albuquerque's hottest homegrown talents will take to the Launchpad stage for a night of pure local magic.

with Romeo Goes To Hell, Goodbye Cody and Someday

By Captain America

Saturday, May 21; Winning Coffee Co. (all-ages): As what has to be the unlikeliest of new rock venues, coffee shop/Sunday morning hangover hangout Winning has stepped up to the plate as an all-ages rock 'n' roll space. This is ever-more important in light of Mayor Marty's latest assault on teen fun. Last weekend, Winning hosted the Dirty Novels. This week, it's a Unit 7 Drain CD release show, supported by the punk rockers that renewed my faith in punk rock, Romeo Goes To Hell, as well as Goodbye Cody and Someday. Start time is slated for the most un-rocklike time of 7 p.m. Unit 7 Drain leaves trails of CDs in their wake the way you or I leave crumpled Frontier breakfast burrito wrappers. Their recordings shine and their live shows are brilliant, so you can't go wrong with either; or, as is the case here, both. The music is updated alternative rock with heart-rending melodies and ache-of-the-soul lyrics that leave you wuth contented melancholy. It ought to be noted that this all-ages show is The Unit's gift to their small-ages fans who couldn't attend last weekend's over-21 CD-release bash. Aww, how sweet..! Anyway, what else can you do that promises to be as much fun and allows you to get home at an early hour? That is, unless you're too amped by the music you just heard to even think of sleep. Or maybe it's just all that java you sucked down during the show.

Queens of the Stone AgeLullabies to Paralyze(Interscope)

QOTSA's newest album, Lullabies to Paralyze, necessarily begs comparison to their preceding mainstream darling, Songs for the Deaf. Yet while the subtraction of Grohl, Oliveri, and, for the most part, Lanegan, does account for a shift in the band's sound, this is still the rock of Gibraltar. Passionate, intense and skilled instrumentation, along with Joshua Homme's lush vocals, coupled with guest appearances by Billy Gibbons, Shirley Manson and Brodie Dahl make this album worth its weight in indie-rock gold. This is gorgeous, heavy, diverse and unrelenting rock 'n' roll.

TOKiMONSTA • electronic, hip-hop

By August March

Electronic experimentalist and heady hip-hop instrumentalist Jennifer Lee, better known as TOKiMONSTA, makes an appearance at the Historic El Rey Theater on Thursday, Sept. 28. An astral entity whose work with Project Blowed and Flying Lotus landed her squarely within the realm of El Lay’s underground hip-hop movement, Lee also happens to be a classically trained pianist. She is well-known for de-constructing the work of luminaries like Justin Timberlake and Yacht through remixes that absolutely come apart in your head as the beat drops—sometimes delicately, sometimes like thunder, but always with a focus that speaks volumes about her musical prowess and wonky tendency to digress upon subtle rhythms and beatific bits of melody. $17 to $22, is all it costs the average 18+ listener to engage in the elusive what-comes-next nature of West-Coast grooviness. The curtain rises on TokiMonsta at 9pm.

Hard rock is a thing that occasionally raises it's grizzled, drug-addled head in this dusty desert. It's a damn good thing the dude can play the guitar like ringing a bell. It also helps that the thing can sing. If not for these two crowd-pleasing aspects, Dirty City denizens would have booted hard rock and his ilk outta this town ages ago. If you still haven't been exposed to this phenomena, may I suggest you haul your hipster ass down to Launchpad on Saturday, Sept. 30, for the album release party hosted by Burque groove-metal stalwarts Sorry Guero! The entirety of the diamond tough, blue-jean-clad, head-banging subculture who worship hard rock will be there, solidly represented by bands like hillbilly-heshers Moonshine Blind and pure punk provocateurs such as the Lords of Wilmoore (eh, I lived on that street too, as an undergrad) and Cobra vs. Mongoose. So be there or be obtuse; it's only ten bones, okay?